Parasites Destroying The Host

I have a lot of respect for Robert Reich. But I'm also kind of a d*ck... so I'll use this picture.

Robert Reich, Munchkin-like economic rocket scientist, poses the following question:

Quiz: What's responsible for the lousy economy most Americans continue to wallow in?

A. Big government, bureaucrats, and the cultural and intellectual elites who back them.

B. Big business, Wall Street, and the powerful and privileged who represent them.

Of course, Reich is too nuanced and thoughtful to give answer B a resounding "well, duh" as I would. But he does say the answer is mostly B:

In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand - the result of the nation's almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top. The very rich don't spend as much of their income as the middle.

Shame then that the standard conservative tune is all about B with blame "big labor" thrown in as a complimentary minor key. But the bigger shame, as Reich points out, is that the Obama admin and large numbers of Democrats are also playing the same tune these days. So how can we ever dig our way out of this damn hole when no-one's willing to acknowledge reality?

The rich in America no longer give a f*ck about social responsibility. They've abandoned any sense of shared prosperity they might have had ten years ago. Now they just sit, Gollum-like, on their own ever-growing piles of 'precious' while the whole country turns into Honduras all around them. There is no trickle down. There is no "redistribution of wealth". Just a massive sucking of wealth upwards where it stays forever like a hamburger in a fat guy's colon. The rich are the parasite that's killing its host. And no-one in politics, GOP'er or Democrat, seems to have balls and perspicuity enough to face what's happening.

But I can't really hate a Republican for siding with the rich. That's all they've ever done. It's those Democrats who stay quiet on naming and blaming, stay quiet on offering non-RNC-approved  reality, and who stay quiet on offering solutions that make me f*cking sick. It's almost as if the two parties have merged and are now working for the same goal: a Republican government in 2012. As Reich concludes, that's what will happen unless the Dems sac up and start truthing against the "blame big government" lie.